59th National Mathematics Summer School

theoretica

It might be worth asking the summer school too - first from X school is the sort of statistic they are often interested in.

Robin9

This is just the sort of thing that schools have scholarships for .  

Kat78MFW

Totally understand your concern about letting him travel alone but if you see him onto the train in Exeter and he has the Uber app on his phone, he can request a cab to the venue as soon as he gets out of the station in Leeds. (I think uber is a bit cheaper than the taxis that sit in the taxi rank outside the station). If you both have smartphones and he has a data allowance, you can track all his movements on the maps app. 

I have a 16 year old girl - I find the best thing for putting my mind at rest is for her to gradually start doing new things. For example, after his GCSEs see if you can drive him and a friend to the nearest train station for them to take a train to your nearest large town.

If he wants to go on to uni,  then it's not long until he might be living in one of these big cities on his own so better for him to take some small steps now to familiarise himself with train travel etc. And if he starts now, hopefully he'll be happy to share his location and phone you regularly along the way. But once he's 18, he might not be so open to keeping you updated all the time. 

Definitely agree with misslayed. Speak to school as soon as you can and see if they can provide any financial support if the funding through UKMT is turned down. 

Kat78MFW

If you decide to put him on the train https://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/tickets/railcards/16-17-saver is the link to buy the railcard for the 50% discount on tickets.

You can get an app for Cross Country trains to buy the tickets - that might be easier to use than the website. Buying direct from Cross Country should mean you don't have to pay a booking fee. 

Pollycat

CornishWildFlower said:

Misslayed said:

PS Congratulations!  

Thanks very much, will have a think over the weekend and see if my pride can take approaching the school.  It might be end up being either that or a sponsorship request to Rishi Sunak, it's all his fault after all....

I do understand your thinking but if that is the last resort for you to manage to pay for this, you really owe it to your son to allow him to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity.

Well done to him.

Savvy_Sue

One of mine went, and had a whale of a time, so do keep working on this.

I think mine met up with another lad (arranged) en route.  

HampshireH

There must be social media groups for those going. He could arrange to meet others there so they are in it together. There will be other more street savvy kids.

grumiofoundation

CornishWildFlower said:

His school did say something to him about maybe helping with the cost of it, but as it only happened yesterday I haven't actually spoken to them directly other than receiving the invitation via email.

As ridiculous as it might sound, I shrink from asking them, it's a very wealthy neighbourhood and not many working class families like us, so I don't want to be seen as having the begging bowl out (as it were)

Please don’t feel like this - the school will quite rightly be proud of your son too and will want to help his success. Schools/local authorities have specific budgets to aid with things like this - why would they not want to pay?

If you do end up finding the school difficult to deal with get in contact your son's maths teacher/head of maths and I would be confident they will try and help and go in to bat for your son.

Also consider a, presumably high achieving, school in a wealthy neighbourhood will want to advertise your son's success. 

As also said can look to apply for support from the summer school too, and your son's school can probably help with this application.